Francesc J. Gómez

This essay focuses on the meaning and sources of the so-called ‘Curial’s second mythological vision’: mainly two ancient commentaries on Dante’s Commedia (Benvenuto da Imola’s and the third draft of Pietro Alighieri’s) and the iconographic tradition of the Triumphus Augustini, or Allegory of Wisdom. This iconographic tradition, widely spread in Italy from the mid-fourteenth century, provides a cultural key to elucidate the link between Baccus and the Liberal Arts, the hidden meaning of the passage, its function within the whole work and the originality of its author.

Ausiàs March’s Poem CXII is a long 'meditatio mortis' that brings an existential dimension to the author’s moral poetry. Through an upward movement from fear to faith, hope and love, this poem describes the efforts of human thought to solve the problem of our mortal condition. A close reading of this work shows the main constituent ideas of March’s thinking on life and death. The poet’s meditation is based on the conceptual architecture of scholastic Aristotelianism, but his axiology rather tends to Stoicism’s ideal of virtue, within a framework of Christian beliefs.

Aquest article estudia en profunditat l’estreta relació dels testimonis barcelonins ALM de la poesia de March des d’una perspectiva codicològica i ecdòtica. La majoria dels poemes compartits pels testimonis AL davallen d’un antecedent comú, consistent en una antologia (λ) d’unes quaranta peces conforme a l’ordre canònic. Aquesta antologia, emparentada amb el cançoner de Nova York (N), no fou l’única font dels testimonis ALM, que presenten altres indicis de relació amb el cançoner de Saragossa (H): un subarquetip κ per als poemes 92-100 del cançoner de París (A) i un altre subarquetip μ per a un petit grup de poemes restants de ALM, entre els quals es detecten vestigis de tradició extravagant. Una anàlisi d’aquesta mena porta a suggerir algunes importants correccions als stemmata codicum d’Amadeu Pagès i Robert Archer.

With almost thirty occurrences homogeneously spread throughout his poetic corpus, sea metaphors and similes (waters, sailing, tempest, shipwreck) constitute the most outstanding group of images in Ausiàs March’s repertoire and offer a broad range of expressive and conceptual possibilities due to the contribution of many traditions, as shown in this paper. Well rooted in the troubadour tradition, familiar with French and Italian fourteenth-century poetry, imbued with Aristotelian and Scholastic notions, educated in the reading of the auctores (Ovid, Virgil, Lucan, Seneca, Boethius), Ausiàs March was able to breathe new life into the symbolism of the navigatio amoris, well established by the medieval reception of Ovid and the lyric tradition, from troubadours to Petrarch, enriching it with moral and dramatic values borrowed from Christian culture, the stoic metaphore of the navigatio vitae and the Ovidian adaptations of the epic and tragic poetica tempestas.

Resum: Aquest article estudia l'estreta relació dels testimonis barcelonins AILM de la poesia de March des d'una perspectiva codicològica i ecdòtica. Una anàlisi d'aquesta mena fa pensar que la majoria dels poemes compartits pels testimonis AL davallen d'un antecedent comú, consistent en una antologia conforme a l'ordre establert per Pagès a partir dels testimonis monogràfics de l'obra de March. Aquesta antologia, emparentada amb el cançoner de Nova York (N), no fou l'única font dels testimonis ALM, que presenten altres indicis de relació amb el cançoner de Saragossa (H).

Abstract: This essay examines the close relation between the Barcelona witnesses AILM of March's poetry from both a codicological and ecdotic perspective. Such an analysis leads to suggest that most of the poems present in both manuscripts AL go back to a common archetype , consisting of an anthology in the order established by Pagès according to the monographic manuscripts of March's works. This anthology, related to the New York manuscript N, was not the only source of ALM, in which other particular relations with the Zaragoza manuscript H can also be detected.

In the “Pars secunda” of his The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale (Canterbury Tales VIII [G], vv. 972-1481), Geoffrey Chaucer explains the tricks inflicted on a London priest by a regular canon who introduces himself as a great alchemist. Studies on Chaucer are used to refer this tale to a brief exemplum in Ramon Llull’s Fèlix or Llibre de meravelles (VI, 36[4].47-68), and also to an extended account included both in the Libro del conde Lucanor (XX) by don Juan Manuel and in the anonymous Libro del caballero Zifar. These three analogues correspond, however, to a narrative motif of Eastern origin —that of the fake alchemist and the king (Thompson, K.111.4/ J.1371; Tubach, 89)— firstly documented in the 13th century by the Kitāb al-mukhtār fī kashf al-asrār (IX, 9) by the Syrian writer Al-Jawbarī (1222/32 AD) and also included in the Tractat de les penes particulars d’infern (XLVI), written soon after 1436 by the Catalan franciscan friar Joan Pasqual. This paper intends to demonstrate that Chaucer’s tale is not depending neither on Llull’s nor on don Juan Manuel’s exempla, but is thoroughly connected with the extended account of this Eastern motif. The conclusions of this analysis allow to trace the outline of a very useful stemma narrationum to discuss the position and the originality of Chaucer’s tale within the tradition.

The wide spread of Dante’s 'Commedia' in Catalonia towards the middle of the fifteenth century, as well as its deep influence on late medieval Catalan literature, would not have been possible without a generational progression in laymen’s instruction and the aid of some exegetical apparatus, often intended to facilitate a synoptical reading by setting the poet’s text within a frame of interlineal and marginal glosses. The best examples of such a layout in this period are a parchment bifolium from a lost manuscript of Dante’s 'Inferno' with Catalan glosses (Cervera, Arxiu Comarcal de la Segarra, s. n.) and another manuscript of Dante’s 'Purgatorio'—dated 10th July 1460 by its copyist, Bernat Nicolau, a Barcelona tanner or 'blanquer'—with abundant glosses in Italian and Catalan by several non-identified hands in its margins and interlinear spaces (New York, Hispanic Society of America, HC397/688). The 'Tractat de les penes particulars d’infern', written soon after 1436 by the Catalan Franciscan friar Joan Pasqual, is, in its turn, the most obvious result of such a synoptical reading of Dante’s text with an exegetical apparatus made up of a variety of glosses and Pietro Alighieri’s 'Comentum'. In order to show the progressive social diffusion of Dante’s reading during the first half of the fifteenth century, these three witnesses are here presented and studied from a historical point of view and in connection with a close analysis of three other documents. Firstly, an ironical account of Dante’s Sybille (Par. XXXIII, 65-66) in a letter sent by king Martin the Humane, dated 20th February 1408, shows that Dante was a well-known auctor in the king’s entourage: an author rich of sentences and similes very useful as a rhetorical device, and no doubt read with some kind of commentary. Secondly, the will and the inventory of belongings of Bernat d’Esplugues (1433), a notary and scribe of Barcelona’s Consell de Cent, and owner of an extraordinary library, reveal that Dante was already read beyond the circles of the Royal Chancery or the Curia of antipope Benedict XIII, settled in Catalonia from 1409: the noble citizen or ciutadà honrat Galceran Carbó, a friend of Esplugues’s who had borrowed one of his three manuscripts of Dante’s Commedia in Italian, is the best example of the kind of reader Joan Pasqual had in mind when, a few years later, he used the 'Divine Comedy' and Pietro Alighieri’s 'Comentum' in his theological works, that were mainly addressed to citizen readers like his dedicatee Joan Llull, who in 1436 was conseller en cap in Barcelona. Thirdly, the lessons on Dante’s 'Commedia' offered in 1458 by Joan de Pisa, a royal silversmith, to the sons of Catalan noblemen and to some Barcelona merchants and their sons, at the very period in which the tanner Bernat Nicolau was copying his 'Purgatorio' manuscript, show that by mid-century the production and reading of Dante’s manuscripts involved a complex network of social relations, comprising the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie. Copyists, readers, teachers and writers bear witness of the rise of Dante over the Catalan cultural horizon in a period in which a good acquaintance with Italian language and literature became a sign of social distinction and a requirement to exercise the highest political, administrative and economic functions.

This article analyzes in a historical context the earliest evidences of Dante’s influence on Catalan culture during the reigns of Kings Peter IV, John I and Martin of Aragon, until the interregnum (1410-12) and the change of dynasty resulting from the Compromise of Caspe (1412). French courts, Avignon papal curia and the close personal, political and dynastic ties between the kingdoms of Sicily and Aragon constitute the background on which this paper studies the many echoes of Dante —from the Commedia, from the commentaries on Dante and from the so-called silloge boccaccesca— to be found around the chancellery and the court of Aragon: specifically, in Bernat Metge’s Llibre de Fortuna e Prudència (1381) and Lo somni (c. 1398); in Andreu Febrer’s, Gilabert de Pròixida’s and Melcior de Gualbes’ poetry; in one letter from Martin of Aragon (1408), and in Felip de Malla’s early predication (1411, 1413).

This article presents and analyses chapter XLVI from the Tractat de les penes particulars d’infern by the Catalan franciscan friar Joan Pasqual, written soon after 1436. This chapter, “Del cercle de l’alquímia”, includes an exemplum which is doubly significant: on the one hand, it documents the alchemic legend in the Plantagenets’ court during the 14th and 15th centuries; on the other hand, and most importantly, it is a new testimony of two narrative motifs of Eastern origin: that of the fake alchemist and the king (Thompson, K.111.4; Tubach, 89), and that of the account-book of mistakes or fools (Thompson, J.1371). After presenting the medieval testimonies of these motifs and the alchemic legend of Ramon Llull and king Edward of England, and also Joan Pasqual and his historical context, the essay offers an edition of the Catalan text and a thorough comparative analysis with the more evident testimonies within the tradition: for the whole story, the Kitāb al-mukhtār fī kashf al-asrār (IX, 9) by Al-Jawbarī, the exemplum XX in the Libro del conde Lucanor by don Juan Manuel and the anonymous Libro del caballero Zifar; also Fèlix or Llibre de meravelles (VI, 36[4].47-68) by Ramon Llull for the motif of the alchemist and the king, and the novella LXXIV in the Novellino Borghini for the motif of the account-book of mistakes or fools. The conclusions of this analysis allow to trace the outline of a very useful stemma narrationum to discuss the position of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The canon’s yeoman’s tale within the tradition.

The second book of Lo somni concludes with a quasi epilogue (II, VI, 14-18) which this paper analyzes reviewing in detail the use of sources. The spirit of King John reveals that God has allowed the unjust imprisonment of a faithful servant as Bernat, innocent of all charges brought against him, in order to give him the chance to redeem himself from his real fault of Epicureanism and become a witness of truth; the writing of Lo somni is justified as a duty of thanksgiving and as a service of testimony. To build this justification, Metge has put into use various models, especially Boethius’ Consolatio philosophiae, the sacred rhetoric of the Bible and Giovanni Boccaccio’s proems to his Corbaccio and his Genealogia deorum gentilium. This paper also focuses on the relationship between the concepts of testimony and corpus phantasticum (I, III, 7).

Pietro Alighieri’s Comentum is the main source of the Tractat de les penes particulars d’infern by the Catalan Franciscan Joan Pasqual (s. XV). This cultural operation is made possible thanks to an special adequacy of the exegetical premises of the commentary. Modern critics assumes that Pietro prefers fictio poetica to visio profetica as an hermeneutical paradigm in order to defend Dante’s orthodoxy even against his message. This paper studies Pietro’s apologetical aims and rejects the prophetical/poetical dichotomy about Veltro’s prophecy in the context of early commentaries. The point is that Pietro situates the Commedia between three poetical coordinates represented by the Psalmist, Vergil and Alain de Lille, on the basis of medieval exegetical tradition and an exact knowledge of the whole Dante corpus.